"Pacific" from the Tzedakah Box series

1998

Tony Berlant is probably most famous for his sculptural "paintings", in which he nails found pieces of colored metals to a plywood base to form images. One of these works, called "Mountain Journey," is on view in the outer lobby of the museum. Later, Berlant became well known for using this technique to make small, house-shaped boxes. With a small slit for a coin hole, he transforms some of these sculptures into tzedakah boxes.

Follow this link to a late 19th- or early 20th-century Danish Tzedakah box in the collection of The Jewish Museum in New York. It includes a nice description of Tzedakah - righteousness or charity - in Jewish tradition.